I’m looking for a road bike but only have about $300.00 to spend. Does this look like a decent deal? I know almost nothing about higher end bikes.
Thanks.
Its quite old and certain parts have moved on considerably during the 16-17 years since it was made.
Its a small frame, I notice the seat pin is set right down and yet the handlebar stem is set way way up - it looks to me to be set above the safety limit markers. This tells me that it has been owned of late by a non-regular rider, but the bar end gear levers are something that would have been fitted after market by a club rider - so I guess this machine has had at least 2 previous owners.
Given that is has allegedly been serviced, I would be surprised if the dealer would have left this machine with the handlebar stem set so high it is above the safety limit - the US is pretty litigious and this is an accident waiting to happen
You are going to have an interesting job trying to replace certain parts unless you get hold of exact replacements rather than modern ones.
If you were to try to upgrade this to brake lever gear changers it would cost plenty, you’d likely have to replace both gear changers, handlebar tape, cables and perhaps even the brake calipers.
I personally would wait for something else to come along, my opinion only
Wouldn’t go near that as something to ride. For retro-bike fans only and even then I’m not sure how interesting it is.
There’s a store we have in the UK called Decathlon (it’s French originaly) that is knocking out an entry-level road-bike called the triban for £300 (this one). Consensus is that it’s fantastic value and rides well. There must be a rough equivalent to this in the US.
Point I’m making is that $300 is probably going to get you close to something good as a new bike, let alone second hand. So you can aim a lot higher than that dodgy Trek in your link (although I appreciate if you don’t know the area it can be hard to navigate round the ridiculous prices people ask for second hand bikes).
Glad I asked. The owner told me it was “a couple of years old”. He mentioned something about the end shifters but it didn’t make sense to me. Thanks for your opinion.
ETA: to both of you.
This is a metal/carbon hybrid frame. CF can be fussy about “cosmetic” damage. What would only be a scratch or dent on a metal frame can seriously compromise composite bikes. It is a very small frame. Are you short? It has a steel fork, which negates a lot of the potential weight saving of CF. It might ride nice or not depending on how well chosen the CF tubing sizes were.
As said above, this is an older bike, and has several features that are getting harder to source. The market pretty much doesn’t support the Look pedals ferinstance, and quill stems are found in few LBS’s, though there are a lot of mail order sources for old stock.
This is about the time when freehubs replaced freewheels, which was a major improvement. This bike could have either. As it is called a 21 speed, it is probably the older 7 speed freewheel type, though the first freehubs were 7 speed, gear clusters for them are harder to find, and offer less selection. Similarly it could have derailuiers suitable for indexed shifting or not. The barcons are not indexed for sure, but if you are at all docile a 7 speed is not rocket science to shift with friction shifters.
Thanks, Kevbo. Since this clearly isn’t what was represented to me, I’m passing on it.
I’ve asked the mods to close this thread and I’m taking the discussion to this thread.
Thanks again for the replies.
Since the OP has started a new thread in IMHO, I’m closing this.